REDLANDS, Calif., Nov. 17 /PRNewswire/ --With the recent signing of a statewide license, all 266 school districts in Arkansas now have access to ESRI's full complement of geographic information system (GIS) technology. The software is available for both administrative and classroom use.

Jim Boardman, assistant commissioner for research and technology at the Arkansas Department of Education, says, "This is an important step in providing educational opportunities for our students to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Learning GIS gives students important skills that can be applied in a wide range of occupations."

For the past several years, high school students in Arkansas have had the chance to use GIS through the
EAST Initiative, an independent, secondary school program that encourages the use of advanced technologies to develop solutions for community-related service projects. EAST originated in Arkansas more than 10 years ago, and the program has spread to other states.

"Through our longtime support of GIS projects in Arkansas high schools, we have developed a close relationship with the Arkansas Department of Education. We will be working with the department to help facilitate its implementation of the technology in schools across the state," says Matt Dozier, president of the EAST Initiative.

The Arkansas Department of Education plans a comprehensive program to introduce GIS to the state's students, teachers, and administrators. A Web site will be set up to exchange information, post announcements, answer questions, and manage GIS software distribution. ESRI's Virtual Campus will be used extensively to introduce students to GIS concepts and applications, and the EAST Initiative will provide administrative, instructional, and technical support.

Since 1969, ESRI has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, ESRI software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. ESRI applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. ESRI is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at
www.esri.com.

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